Unpublished commentary on
Gallo RC, Montagnier L.
The discovery of HIV as the cause of AIDS. New
England
Journal of Medicine
2003;349:2283-5.

It is a pity that Robert Gallo and Luc
Montagnier1 do not provide readers of the Journal with
references to back up their many claims regarding the proof for the existence of
HIV and its role in AIDS. Especially since many of their claim are
questionable. For example:

(1) "…the causative relationship between HIV and
AIDS was accepted by the scientific and medical community…" Not everybody in
the scientific community accepted that they proved the existence of HIV and its
causative role in AIDS.2-4 Also, acceptance of a theory does not prove the theory
correct.

(2) "In early 1983, a clear-cut isolate [HIV] was
obtained in Paris…". However, in 1984 Gallo and his colleagues said that
Montagnier and his group's 1983 evidence did not prove "true
isolation".5 As late as 1997 Jaap Goudsmit wrote: "The BRU lymph
node was first cultured in early January 1983 and, on January 15, it shed an
enzyme absolutely unique to the lentivirus group…The BRU virus grew slowly and
with difficulty, but its identity and activity were reported in the May 20, 1983
issue of Science…The Pasteur Group was widely acclaimed but very
worried. In the world of virology, finding a new virus is not enough: You must
propagate and isolate the organism for analysis by other virologists. The
French had not yet isolated their new lentivirus";6

(3) "…reverse transcriptase - the enzyme that is
present in all retroviruses…". It is true that this enzyme is present in all
retroviruses, including lentiviruses and that the detection of reverse
transcription was considered by Montagnier proof for HIV isolation. But it is
also true that the enzyme is not unique to these viruses, much less to
lentiviruses. Furthermore, all the HIV experts including Gallo and Montagnier
have proven the presence of the enzyme indirectly, that is, by transcription of
the synthetic template-primer An.dT15. However, even before the AIDS
era, at least Gallo and the principal and second authors of the Montagnier 1983
study were aware that this template-primer can be transcribed by cellular DNA
polymerases7-9 as was proven by Montagnier himself in
1984.10

(4) "…the centres for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) reported cases of AIDS in patients with haemophilia who had received only
filtered clotting factors, which seemed to eliminate the possibility that the
agent was a micro-organism larger than a virus". If AIDS is caused by filtered
factor VIII it does not mean that the cause is a virus. The cause could be
something even smaller than a virus. If as Gallo and Montagnier claim at the
basis of the clinical manifestations of AIDS is a decrease in T4 cells, then
given the fact that Robin Weiss and the CDC have shown that in haemophiliacs,
"the abnormal T-lymphocyte subsets are a result of the intravenous infusion of
factor VIII concentrates per se, not HTLV-III [HIV] infection"11, 12 then one would have to conclude that the cause of AIDS
in haemophiliacs is factor VIII and not HIV. Furthermore if: (a) as some of
the most eminent HIV experts, including Montagnier claim that: "gp120 is
crucial to HIV's ability to infect new cells", and gp120 is present only in the
HIV particles spikes (knobs);13, 14 (b) to date nobody has proven the existence of spikes
in the cell-free HIV particles;15 (c) Factor VIII is made from cell-free plasma; (d)
according to the CDC “drying of
HIV-infected human blood or other body fluids reduces the theoretical risk of
environmental transmission to that which has been observed--essentially
zero";16(e) Factor VIII is a freeze dried powder several months
or even years old before use; then if the cause of AIDS in haemophiliacs is a
virus, the virus would have to be other than HIV.

(5) "The growth of the putative virus in T-cell
lines was an enormous step, facilitating the development of a blood test for
HIV, which…produced convincing evidence of the association between HIV infection
and AIDS". To obtain antigens for the development of the blood test (antibody
test) one must obtain a large amount of the virus and, as Montagnier points
out,17 purify the virus. In 1997 Montagnier
acknowledged that in 1983 his team did not purify the virus, and in his view,
neither did Gallo's in 1984.17 Neither has anybody else since. Even if there is
proof beyond reasonable doubt that the antigens in the antibody test are HIV
proteins, proof must exist that they do not cross-react with antibodies which
are elicited by agents other than HIV. However, the specificity of the antibody
tests has never been proven and, due to the lack of a gold standard, cannot be
proven.3 Furthermore, Essex and his colleagues have
shown that antibodies to carbohydrate-containing antigens such as
lipoarabinomannan, which are present in all mycobacteria and fungi, react with
the antigens in the HIV tests.18 Since the vast majority of the opportunistic
infections which signify AIDS are caused by mycobacteria or fungi a correlation
between a positive antibody test and AIDS may be present in the absence of
HIV19, 20 Most importantly, even if an association
between HIV and AIDS existed, such an association is not proof for
causation.

(6) "…AIDS had already appeared as a long-lasting
disease, with an extremely long time between exposure to the agent (through
blood or sexual activity) and the profound state of immune suppression
characterised by the occurrence of opportunistic infections or cancers". If the
causative agent of AIDS is sexually transmitted, then the agent cannot be HIV.
The main absolute necessary property of sexually transmitted agents is
bidirectionality, that is transmission from the passive to the active partner
and vice versa. To date there is no proof that this is the case for
HIV. In 1984 Gallo and his colleagues reported that "Of eight different sex
acts, seropositivity correlated only with receptive anal intercourse…and with
manual stimulation of the subject's rectum (receptive "fisting")…and was
inversely correlated with insertive anal intercourse".21 Two years later they confirmed their 1984 findings"
"In this analysis, only receptive rectal intercourse, douching, rectal
bleeding…were significant predictors (p<.05) of anti-HTLV-III positivity…We
found no evidence that other forms of sexual activity contributed to the
risk".22 In a 1994 review of all the major studies
conducted in gay men the authors concluded: "(1) unprotected anogenital
receptive intercourse poses the highest risk for the sexual acquisition of HIV-1
infection; (2) anogenital insertive intercourse poses the highest risk for the
sexual transmission of HIV-1 infection…(5) no or no consistent risk for the
acquisition of HIV-1 infection has been reported regarding other sexual
practices such as anogenital insertive intercourse and oroanal sex…"23

Since only the passive partner becomes
seropositive then, at least in gay men, HIV, like pregnancy, can be sexually
acquired but not sexually transmitted. The largest, longest, best designed and
executed studies conducted in the USA and Africa show that HIV is not
heterosexually transmitted.24-27